Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor best known for his award-winning performance as an aging rock star in the film Love Actually.
On the island
Eight records
It reminds me of loafing, and it reminds me of when I was probably in my early twenties, loafing around in other people's houses while everybody else went to work, which I never really got over.
It's perfect. There is nothing wrong with this record. There is an absence of wrongness.
It will also serve on my desert island to keep me in good shape for air guitaring, which is a big part of my life.
This one I like particularly because it's a sweet groove and I imagine myself dancing on the beach and I'm also rather taken with the introduction, which always amuses me.
This choice is largely for my daughter because I'm hoping that should she be listening that it will make her laugh.
WinterFavourite
There's a large part of The Rolling Stones appeal for me as something to do with Englishness, which I've never quite understood. And this sort of takes me home, as they used to say in the old days.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:15Was there a frustrated rock star in you?
When I was a boy I used to throw shapes in front of the bathroom and mirror which I hoped might suggest that at some point in the not too distant future I might turn out to be good in bed. And I wanted to be selected by the gods of rock and roll and it didn't happen. You know, I wanted to be Keith Richard, I really you know, more than anybody else.
Presenter asks
6:02Did you apply to the Guildford School of Dance and Drama in order to impress girls?
I met a girl who made a deep impression on me, and she was going to a drama college, and she suggested that perhaps I should go as well. ... And my friend and I, I remember, went to the library and we stole the complete works of Shakespeare and the complete works of George Bernard Shaw for no good reason. ... And we figured we'd be clever and we'd give the drama school one girl and one boy. So for my girl, I gave them Eliza Doolittle. Can you believe it?
Presenter asks
18:46Why do you have minus interest in performing Shakespeare?
The truth is that I can't operate in those kind of trousers. I really can only operate in a decent lounge suit. This is a serious point. This is an absolutely serious point. Tights. Tights, I don't even like you saying the word. I don't even like hearing about it. ... And it's never, ever, ever going to happen again.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
21:29Did you design your career so that you stayed one step back from the front?
I think what we do is we're shirking the challenge, really. ... I think I probably was, yeah. And I was given the opportunity. I've turned down things that would make your hair curl. ... Funk, yeah, pure solid funk. ... It was just that I thought they were out of my range and I avoided them. ... I didn't want the public humiliation that I was, you know, that I was certain would result.
Presenter asks
22:57Do you still feel scared?
Yeah. No, no, no. And ask anyone, you know. It's not in any way peculiar to me. You ask lots of performers and people that you're very familiar with, great performers, and they will tell you that they vomit before walking on stage. You know, there are it's the the terrible thing is it doesn't get any better. ... What people don't tell you is that not only do you still feel that way, but it actually gets worse.
“I was quite good on what I absolutely passionately didn't want to do, which was basically to go to work.”
“And then the other thing they would routinely say was you must understand there may be long periods of unemployment, at which point you'd I'd have to keep myself from sort of cheering. You know, this was exactly what I had in mind. Long periods of unemployment was right up my alley.”
“I had no confidence whatsoever, which was my other big secret.”